Computer technology that enables a device to recognize and understand spoken words, by digitizing the sound and matching its pattern against the stored patterns. Currently available devices are largely speaker-dependent (recognize speech of only one or two persons) and can recognize discrete speech (speech with pauses between words) better than the normal (continuous) speech. Their major applications are in assistive technology for helping people in working around their disabilities. Not to be confused with voice recognition which is used mainly in security devices.